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If the holidays are wrapping up and the cold, dark winter is truly setting in, it can mean only one thing. It’s awards season! For the UK film industry, the greatest accolade that can be bestowed is from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA for short, which also happens to the name of the statuette presented to the winners.

On this past Friday, the nominees for the 2015 BAFTAs were announced at the Picadilly headquarters of the Academy itself by perennial host Stephen Fry and his cohort Sam Claflin. While there might have been a few snubs, most of the expected names were announced. Of interest to British movie fans, The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game received multiple nods for acting, screenplay, director and best overall film. Ralph Fiennes, RosamundPikeand Imelda Staunton also earned nominations for their impressive work in TheGrand Budapest Hotel, Gone Girl and Pride respectively. A complete list of nominees can be found here.

Though a British organization, most of BAFTA’s awards are not limited to UK produced movies except for one – the Outstanding British Film category. Last year some of the nominees for this award had a tenuous claim to this distinction. In fact it was Gravitystarring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney that won this honor in 2014.

This year’s batch of outstanding movies are much more identifiably British and a good representation of UK filmmaking overall. Two are biopics of famous scholars, two are based on historical events set in the fairly recent past, one is a Scottish sci-fi thriller and the last is a CGI depiction of a beloved British children’s character. I’ve actually seen four out of the six films on the list and, despite a few disagreements based on my own personal tastes, would concur with a majority of its candidates.

In case your holidays were a bit too hectic to fully appreciate the fabulousness that was BBC Radio 4’s recent dramatization of Neil Gaimanand Terry Pratchett’scult classic novel Good Omens, well you’re in luck. While the radio drama has finished its on-air run, the entire series is available to stream for free – regardless of where you live! – on the BBC iPlayer website.

First published in 1990, Good Omens subtitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, tells the story of the End Times. Sort of. It involves an angel (Aziraphale) and a demon (Crowley) who quite like living on Earth, actually, and take it upon themselves to thwart the plans of the Antichrist, whose name is Adam. It’s kind of complicated. (But it’s awesome.)

Happy New Year, Telly Visions readers! From our family here to yours – we hope you all have a wonderful 2015; we're wishing you a year full of love and laughter and, of course, as much great British television as you can possibly cram in to 365 days. Luckily, it appears as though we're going to be quite spoiled for choice in the New Year.

When I first decided to write this post about shows ending their runs in 2014, I didn’t realize how complicated it would be. Little did I know that in the fast paced world of modern entertainment broadcasting, rumors run rampant and programming decisions can change on a dime.

Get ready, fans of radio drama, for the apocalypse is nigh. (In the best way of course.) The highly anticipated radio adaptation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 cult classic Good Omens finally has an official airdate.

The six-part drama is due to begin with a double Monday, December 22 at 11pm and running throughout Christmas week before culminating in an hour-long finale on December 27. (This is a fairly similar rollout to what BBC Radio 4 did for their popular Neverwhere adaptation, stripping the episodes over the course of a week back in March.)

In case I’ve never mentioned it, I work at a public library. That’s why in some of the pieces I write for Telly Visions I suggest borrowing DVDs from the library when on-line streaming is not an option. At my job when patrons stump my co-workers with a movie or TV series request, I’m often called upon to step in and solve the mystery. It’s a role I enjoy and I spend a lot of time and effort building up my knowledge to share with others.

But wait, you say. Isn’t a library about books? Indeed it is and all the employees on our staff are expected to read widely in order to help people find an enjoyable or informative book to read. Therefore when I find the time, I’m sure you can hazard a guess at what I read. You‘ve got it, British authors. I’ve just finished the most recent Ian McEwan novel, The Children Act, and I have several more on my bedside table waiting for my attention including one entitled Us by David Nicholls, the author of books such as Starter for Ten and One Day, both of which have been adapted for the big screen.

However, at this point, I must admit my favorite combination is a book written by a British celebrity. It can be a memoir about hitting bottom and finding a home like Craig Ferguson’sAmericanon Purpose or the humorous life lessons of Miranda Hart’sIs It Just Me?

Whenever I see a British actor or comedian announcing a book signing on Twitter, I immediately go to the library’s catalog to see if I can get my hands on the newest star-studded literary offering. Sadly, there are many times my search is unsuccessful. The celebrity has to be famous enough in the US for it to be worth releasing here. Case in point, when James Corden released his autobiography May I Have Your Attention, Please? in 2012, I asked our collection resources librarian if she could order this book for our system. She placed a request to purchase and after a few months informed me it fell through even though the title was available on Amazon. I’m curious to see if once Corden’s latest film Into the Woods is released at Christmas and he begins his run on the Late, Late Show in January, his story might have grown a bigger readership.

Here are a number of memoirs and celebrity musings by British personalities that have been published this fall. If you check with your local library you’re likely to find them there and here are some of the reasons why.

If Halloween wasn’t already one of your favorite holidays, if you love the Harry Potter books at all, it’s probably about to start moving its way up to Number One on your list in fairly short order.

Why? Well, in the wizarding universe created by J.K. Rowling, Halloween is basically like Christmas for young witches and wizards, but this year it’s Potter fans worldwide that are the ones getting a present. The author has announced that she’ll be releasing a new short story from the world of Hogwarts on October 31. (!!!!!)

Today’s the day! Somehow our little British blog Telly Visions officially turns three years old today! It’s amazing to me that we’re already celebrating the third anniversary of this blog – I can’t believe that this much time has gone by since we got started dishing British television and film and all the other the other things that are pretty much essential to life for an Anglophile.

So here we are, 1,095 days and 989 blog posts later – and that’s so close to 1,000 posts I can’t believe it – and still going strong. And that’s all down to you guys for reading and commenting and being here. Thank you being part of our blog family!

Good Omens, subtitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, tells the story of the End Times. Sort of. What it’s really about is an angel (Aziraphale) and a demon (Crowley) who quite like living on Earth, actually, and aren’t really that interested in the Rave to team up to stop the foretold Apocalypse from occurring and defeat the Antichrist, whose name is Adam.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, the dog days of July are upon us, when entertainment enthusiasts everywhere gather in Southern California for the best weekend of the year, when we all put on costumes and revel in whatever various forms of geekery we most enjoy. Yes, I’m headed back to San Diego Comic Con International this weekend, so bear with us if the blog is a bit quiet this weekend.

While I’m technically going for fun once again this year (and with the hopes that it’ll take my mind off things to be quite honest), there’s no reason that I still can’t report back to everyone about all the relevant and exciting Brit-related news from this year’s convention.

Sadly, there are no Doctor Who or Sherlock panels to be had this year, but rumor has it a host of British celebs will be in San Diego promoting their latest projects, which will include appearances by such famous faces as Colin Firth, Daniel Radcliffe and more – including, yes, even Benedict Cumberbatch.

Expect a full report next week, but in the meantime make sure you're following the blog on Twitter, because if I manage to see or do anything exceptionally awesome, that's likely where you'll see it first. (If you just want to see photos of my TARDIS dress and me sitting in various massive lines for things, you can find my personal account here.)

WETA Television and Classical WETA 90.9 FM are community-based public broadcasting stations serving the Washington area and supported by listeners and viewers. WETA is also a major producing station for PBS.